The present invention relates to a device and method designed to clean raw water or other liquid against contaminating organisms such as cryptosperidia and giardia, and to provide a source of the cleaned water or other liquid. The principles of the present invention are particularly useful in providing a portable container designed to enable a body of raw water or other liquid to be quickly and efficiently cleaned, and to provide a portable source of the cleaned water or other liquid.
The term “raw liquid or raw water”, as used in this application, means water or other liquid which has not been subjected to municipal type of treatment, (e.g., river water, lake water, marsh water, ground water, reservoir water, secondary treatment waste water, industrial waste water and the like) or if subjected to municipal type of treatment has been subjected to possible organisms such as cryptosperidia and/or giardia or other contaminants.
Additionally, the concept of a liquid such as water being “cleaned” or “clean” means that the water or other liquid is in a condition that is suitable for human consumption.
In municipal water systems, treating raw water to clean the water to a level that, by general community safety standards, is suitable as potable, drinkable water typically requires several processing steps and significant processing equipment to carry out those processing steps. Such water systems may include e.g various types of processing steps in which (a) materials such as chlorine or sodium hypochlorite are added to raw water (b) a coagulant is added that is appropriate to coagulate suspended substances, (c) the coagulated substances are flocculated for sedimentation separation, and (d) the raw water is subjected to sand filtration, and other additional cleaning steps. As will be appreciated by those in the art, such processing involves a number of steps and considerable treatment equipment to bring the raw water to a cleaned state. Moreover, as is also know to those in the art, there are times when water that has been cleaned by a municipal process may still be subjected to contaminating organisms such as cryptosperidia and giardia and may still contain chlorine which make such water unsuitable to human consumption. Thus, suggestions for advanced treatment of water systems include biological treatment; treatment with ozone and treatment with activated carbon.
The applicants believe there is a need for a simple and efficient way of cleaning raw water or other liquid, that does not require the type of processing steps or equipment that are typically used in municipal water treatment systems.
The applicants also believe there is a need for a portable water container with a simple and efficient way of cleaning raw water, so that a hiker, military person, or other person who may have to depend on his/her environment for sustenance, and who may not have an available water source other than raw water, has a simple and efficient way of using virtually any available body of raw water as a source, and cleaning the raw water, to provide the person with a portable source of clean water.